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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936256">do I compel you (like you compel me)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/blood%20bag%20boogie'>blood bag boogie (evil_bunny_king)</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king'>evil_bunny_king</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dancing and the Dreaming [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Love me soft and sweet, Nate's got a four-poster bed and it needs some use peeps, Porn with Feelings, enjoy the ride, hornyenergy, like woah, rating has gone up, sensual nate, this is a shameless resolution to all that goddamn UST which I love but oh my GOD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:28:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24936256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/blood%20bag%20boogie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel Sewell likes to take things... slow. The detective takes matters into her own hands.</p><p>--</p><p>“Do you like it?” she asks, just as quietly. His thumb drifts over her hip, his hand there warm, holding. “Knowing. How much I want you.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dancing and the Dreaming [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>236</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is a lyric from the wonderful 'Hands up - I love you' by Madrugada.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The warehouse base, after hours. It's not the first time Dinah has stayed the night after a long day of work and research. She likes it here - the quiet fullness of the library, the comfortable corners of the living room. Her bedroom. She'd recognised Nate's fingerprints in it even before Farah had confirmed it- the careful detail, the finesse to turn what was a comfortable eclectic mess in her own apartment into something like a <em> home</em>. And she does feel at home here, in the room he’d made for her, the bedsheets he’d chosen.</p><p>She imagines the thought that went into it. She remembers the press of his thumb against her wrist, warm, lingering. His lips against her neck. She wonders if he’d thought about her here, tangled in the soft sheets, hair spread across the pillow, her hand slipped between her thighs and his name in her mouth.</p><p>It's not enough. She prowls into the rest of the warehouse, following the glow of gentle light to the kitchen to where she knows, she hopes, he might be still reading.</p><p>The aga emanates heat in the centre of the kitchen, the low cast sconce lighting catching on the green lacquer and the books Nate has sprawled over the table. The dark, waxed wood tabletop glows with the light.</p><p>Nate isn't reading anymore, just as Dinah isn’t sleeping.</p><p>Her bare feet pad softly across the warm tile and Nate lowers his book, smiling a slow, gentle smile.</p><p>She sees it when the smile changes: when his eyes flicker and darken, with surprise and then something else and she wonders what she must look like, smell like. She's dressed only in her sleep shorts and the thin shirt she’d thrown on, kept together by a few hurriedly done up buttons. She feels - tightly wound. She’s alive in her skin, aware of where the fabric catches, drags, a shiver chasing it and pebbling the skin. She feels <em> warm</em>.</p><p>Her mouth parts with it. She burns with it.</p><p>Nate watches her approach from behind the table, hand folded over the book in his lap.</p><p>“Detective.” She watches the way he says it, the word in his mouth; how his voice lowers, lingering. It’s not a question. Not quite.</p><p>There’s a lazy heat settled over the room, honey-thick and warm. It could feel like a dream; and a part of her hopes that it is, because she’s not sure what she’s doing - just that she <em> doesn’t want to stop</em>.</p><p>“I thought I’d find you here,” she says as she reaches the table, letting her hand graze over its blood-warm surface.</p><p>“And so you have,” he says, softly, so softly, and her heart trips in her chest. He smiles again, that smile of his that says he <em> knows </em>and it reminds her of cups of coffee in the morning, the tulips on her desk, the sprigs of lavender pressed within the old books. He’s dressed down to a soft, grey henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. </p><p>He doesn’t look away. There’s a gentleness, in the smooth lines of his features. His countenance is tempered and refined - and she wants to dig her fingers in, find out what it takes to make that composure fall apart.</p><p>She stops in front of him and he turns to face her, twisting his knees away from the table. She takes the opportunity afforded and steps between his legs, forcing him to look up, her hand settling, oh so lightly, on his shoulder. Her shirt is open loosely at her collarbone and when she dips to meet his eye, she feels the thin fabric move, her hair slipping from her shoulders to catch the edges of the open collar. She sees him follow the movement. His gaze flicks back up to her face. Her eyes. Her mouth.</p><p>She smiles.</p><p>There's a touch at her waist as his hand smooths there and settles, fingers spread and warm through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her heart flutters again, stomach tensing. She grins as he does, slowly, knowingly- and she sees his eyelashes flutter, the soft intake of breath. He knows she cottoned on to his little game. She’s glad. It’s been one-sided for too long.</p><p>He licks his lips, and then asks: “How can I help you, Dinah?”</p><p>There's a depth to his tone, a promise in the way he says her name and she shifts on her bare feet, weighted and warm, and she plays along.</p><p>“I’m curious."</p><p>He tilts his head, grip tightening on her waist, and slides his book onto the table with his free hand.</p><p>“About?”</p><p>"About..." She lets her fingers trail over the table top to the book, his long fingers, and smiles as his breath catches. "About you, Nate. About us. And our many, many inopportune interruptions.”</p><p>He chuckles, low. "It is… rare that we have time alone."</p><p>She hums and runs her fingers from his shoulder to his neck, the collar of his shirt, daring, feeling the press of her pulse in her throat as she does. The moment feels heavy, thick. "It is."</p><p>He draws an unsteady breath, and then laughs again. His hand under hers is warm, as is the one at her waist; she feels the path of his thumb, idly stroking. She shivers and his grip flexes, the laughter falling away.</p><p>“And what is it,” he starts, “in particular, that you want to know?”</p><p>He tilts his head back to look up at her, dark-eyed. Her skin burns where his hand is placed around her waist, and there are all the thoughts she's been wondering, wanting-</p><p>She wants to know what it's like to kiss him, without interruptions. She wants to know what he tastes like. Whether he wants this, too, because sometimes she wonders - for all of his pretty words, the lingering touches and slow smiles.</p><p>He pulls his hand from beneath hers, reaching out to brush her cheek and she turns into it, her eyes slipping briefly closed. When she opens them his gaze is heavy, focused on the path of his fingers beneath lowered lashes as his thumb drifts towards her mouth.</p><p>She wants to taste the column of his neck. She wants to bite his thumb, place a kiss in his warm palm; climb in his lap and know all the words and sounds she can draw out of him.</p><p>She doesn't say anything. She reaches for him, framing his jaw with her hands, drawing him closer. She’s gentle, enough for him to pull away, to say no, but he doesn't. He doesn’t. He blinks up to meet her gaze, a flush to his cheeks, and when she pauses, his lips part-</p><p>She kisses him, or he kisses her and she feels him groan, the sound swallowed along with the next breath. His mouth moves with hers, warm and soft and yielding. He tastes like the hot chocolate he makes her, mug abandoned among the books. He presses into her, straightening in his seat. "Dinah," she thinks she hears him murmur, between longer, aching kisses. She's burning, she's burning and melting at the same time. “Dinah, <em>azizam-</em>”</p><p>Her hands are in his dark hair, mussing it beyond all redemption. She drinks him in as he pulls her flush against him, as close as they can get, his hands burning lines up her back and fisting in her night shirt.</p><p>When she breaks away his mouth chases hers for a last kiss. He captures her lower lip gently, lingering, and then doesn’t retreat far, pressing his forehead to hers. "Dinah…" he starts, but then gives up with a breath of a laugh. She grins, lopsided and silly, pleased to have made Nathaniel Sewell <em> speechless</em>. As if she isn’t as undone as he is. She steals another kiss, two.</p><p>“...You had questions, I remember,” he says with the next breath, cracking an eye open. He’s stroking a line up her back, curling his fingers in her unbound hair. Nate is tactile, she finds, and she likes it, she likes it a lot. “Not that this was, at all…” He laughs, again without words. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while. A long while.”</p><p>She dips forward to steal a final kiss and he meets her, slower, <em> warm</em><em>.</em> “Me too,” she whispers against his mouth. And then she musters her drifting thoughts, pulling her focus away from the tempting smile curving his soft, full lips. “Which is why…”</p><p>Both of his eyes open, and he pulls away enough to look at her properly, although he doesn’t let her go far. “Yes?”</p><p>“I want you... to talk to me.” She draws her nails lightly through the hair at his nape. An appreciative shiver rewards the action. “Tell me. How long...  you’ve wanted me.”</p><p>His response is immediate, willingly given. “I have wanted you since the day I met you. Seeing you again, though. Having you <em> here</em>.” His gaze flicks to her mouth and back, lingering. His hand draws through her hair. “I wanted to kiss you then, in the living room. To press you against the wall, to hold you, in front of the team. Your mother.” His laugh is low.</p><p>Her breath is heavy, thick, as she finds her words. “You walked me to my car.”</p><p>“I did.” The hand on her back, smoothing to her hip. His thumb finds her hip bone, traces it.</p><p>“You said goodbye.”</p><p>He looks at her, dishevelled and well-kissed, his shirt collar pulled out of place. The brown of his eyes are dark around the blown pupils.</p><p>He dips, and she takes a breath when he places a soft kiss against her collarbone, mouth warm, his stubble rasping. “I did.” Another kiss, just as gentle, and with each butterfly touch a shiver runs through her. “And it was harder than I thought it would be.”</p><p>“It was hard for me to leave, too,” she breathes, rewarding, her hands sinking into his hair and he groans again, squeezing her hips. The next kiss has an edge of teeth.</p><p>And then he pulls back to look up at her again. “I don’t like leaving you,” he breathes, and the directness of his gaze makes her blush, makes her want to look away. But she doesn’t, that sweet-sharp tension humming through her. “I like having you here, in my home, the one we’re building. Reading with me in the library."</p><p>“You made me a room,” she points out, quirking an eyebrow with a smile. But she can’t help the weight she gives that, the way that idea has consumed her. Her hands fall to his shoulders to toy with his collar. “You chose my sheets.”</p><p>“Ah, yes.” There’s a light in his eyes, a dawning smile. “...I did."</p><p>"I've been thinking about that a lot," she murmurs and there's that flush again across his cheeks, amidst honest delight.</p><p>He snags one of her hands, gently raising and turning it so he can press a kiss into her palm, his eyes fluttering closed. His breath eases warm against her wrist and the stirring heat in her stomach settles into something tender, full. It’s a rush of a feeling, tumbling into itself and almost overwhelming, and she tips her head down against his to escape it, pressing their foreheads together.</p><p>They breathe, swaying slightly. She smiles through the swell of her heart, the almost pain of affection in her chest.</p><p>“You sense it, can’t you?” she whispers. She’d guessed it long ago, taken it for granted, but she wants to hear him acknowledge it, say it. “You can tell when my heartbeat changes. How I’m... feeling.”</p><p>He stirs, tilting his head until he can brush the tips of their noses. “Yes,” he says. “I can.”</p><p>And her stomach flutters, tight and winding. “Do you like it?” she asks, just as quietly. His thumb drifts over her hip, his hand there warm, holding. “Knowing. How much I want you.”</p><p>“Yes,” he says into the small space between them, almost a confession. “I do.”</p><p>The force of her shiver almost makes her shudder, and she feels his head raise, his breath against her cheek as he places a light kiss at the corner of her mouth. It's not enough-</p><p>“Tell me, Nate.” Another kiss, at the edge of her jaw. “Please.”</p><p>His inhale is unsteady. “...Dinah.”</p><p>“Please,” she asks again, and she opens her eyes to meet his gaze. The sliver of his irises are storm-dark. He watches her, his expression open, rapt, cheeks blood-warm. He watches her as she pushes him back into his seat, gently, asking, and then straddles him, sinking onto him in her thin sleep shorts. He reaches out to steady her hips and then pulls her closer and she takes a breath, simmering, anticipating, her hands on his shoulders. His pyjama pants are silky, warm. She feels the strength of muscle moving beneath, the hot, hard line against her thigh.</p><p>“What should I say?” he says almost to himself, gaze half-lidded as he looks up at her, and her breath stutters as his hips shift beneath her.</p><p>He leans forward, reclaiming lost ground. They’re once more eye-to-eye and with the way he looks at her, surrounds her, she feels almost dizzy.</p><p>"I like… seeing how you react to me." He takes a hand from her hip, ghosting it over the shoulder of her slipping nightshirt. A shiver of goosebumps follows the trail of his fingers along the skin beneath her open collar. He finds her collarbone. The hollow of her throat.</p><p>"Yes?" she whispers.</p><p>"Feeling it." His gaze flicks up to hers, drinking her in. She’s leaning closer, her breaths picking up, resisting the urge to squirm in his lap. "Tasting it."</p><p>He kisses her neck, winding his arm around her to hold her close and heat and pleasure knot in her stomach. She makes a sound - she doesn't realise she's doing it until she hears it, a soft note on a breath. She braces against his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath her palm.</p><p>"Detective,” she hears him murmur between kisses. “Dinah. You are… irresistible."</p><p>Her knees tighten around him, her hips tilting into his and he moans into her skin, the sound soft but still loud in the quiet kitchen. The kiss is edged with the hint of teeth. “You are…” he starts, his arms wrapped her around her now, and then he laughs, breathlessly. “You’re going to undo me, Dinah. And I want that and… so much more but we can’t, here. Not here. We need to, we should-”</p><p>She laughs in his ear, also breathless, and then pulls the lobe between her teeth.</p><p>He shivers beneath her. “Ah… <em> Dinah- </em>”</p><p>He wraps his hands under her thighs and suddenly levers the two of them upright, a blur of movement. Her legs automatically wrap around his waist, her hands clinging to his shoulders and Nate grins up at her, expression alive, devious. He’s breathing fast - they both are, tilting into each other as if they can’t bear the separation - but he manages to carry them the few steps to the door.</p><p>“Yours or mine?” Dinah asks, through the attention she’s lavishing on his bared neck.</p><p>“Mine,” he manages, after pressing her into the wall and kissing her thoroughly for her efforts. His smile is crooked, his grip flexing under her thighs. She tips her head back against the wall to watch him, her fingers curling in his messy hair. “I promise you,” he continues, closing back in for another kiss. “I’m not letting go of you so easily.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p><i>“I want you,” she says, and he grins, almost silly with unrestrained affection.</i><br/> <br/><i>“You have me,” he says, and he dips his head, tugging at the neck of her shirt with his teeth.</i></p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this took a while but, whew, is it a <i>fun ride</i>.</p><p>Please look at this gorgeous piece of art that <a href="https://twitter.com/MidnightSinner5/status/1283485568966557697">I commissioned from MidnightSinner</a> for Nate and Dinah chapter 1 (*fans self*)</p><p>100% recommend listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06_xbFvLEL0">'no pants dance'</a> as it was totally my jam for this.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They make it down the length of the corridor in increments, her hands in his hair, her mouth on his, chasing. They come up against Nate’s door on the lower floor and he presses her against it for a long, heated moment, his kisses insistent, inevitable. He retreats only to fumble for the doorknob.</p><p>She tucks her head into his neck, placing a kiss there and then taking the moment to <em> breathe</em>. Her head is spinning. She’s drunk, on his kisses, on the taste of him, the anticipation of what comes next. </p><p>He almost stumbles when the door gives, releasing them into the room, and he catches the both of them with a laugh. His arm slides more securely around her back, the other under her thighs, fingers splayed and warm. They inch beneath the hem of her sleep shorts. She tightens her legs around him.</p><p>“Are you still with me, Dinah?” he says, his words little more than a breath against her ear.</p><p>She answers with kisses pressed to his jaw, grazing her teeth over his stubble and she feels his responding hum, the tightening grip of his hands.</p><p>“Good,” comes Nate’s voice, low and warm.</p><p>He kicks the door closed behind them.</p><p>Once the shaded light from the hallway shutters out, they’re left in the glow of the lamps that dot the surfaces of the room. She’s been here before - briefly, to fetch him for meetings (Farah’s suggestion, borne out with rolled eyes and secret smiles) or to request research assistance - but never for long (<em> enough </em>). She knows the shape of it, though. The dark wood of the furniture, strewn with even more books. The armchairs in the corner. The shadow of the four-poster bed, curtains tied back and sheets rumpled, as if he’d reclined there earlier, flicking through a book.</p><p>“Nate,” she manages, dragging her hands up his shoulders to the collar of his shirt. “Bed.”</p><p>She feels his smile against her cheek and then he carries her the few steps there.</p><p>He presses his knee into the mattress and sets her on to it gently, reaching for a pillow that he tucks under her head. She feels the cool touch of his sheets against her back, her bare arms, and then Nate straightens, sliding his warm palms up her arms to find her hands. She unwinds her legs from around his waist reluctantly. The look in his eye as he gazes down at her sends warmth prickling across her skin.</p><p>He draws her hand to his mouth and presses kisses to each of her knuckles, slow, lingering.</p><p>“Have you thought about this?” she asks, her heartbeat heavy in her chest, and he smiles against her fingers. He turns her hand to press the next kiss against her palm.</p><p>“I have,” he replies, kissing her wrist. “And much,” more kisses, to the soft underside of her arm, trailing to her elbow. “Much- more.” She takes a breath, the slow, steady progress making her head spin. She feels the mattress dip as he leans forward. He finds the curve of her shoulder, settling where the neck of her shirt has slipped, his weight sinking over her and her hands scrabble for purchase in the shirt he’s still, somehow, <em> wearing.</em></p><p>He’s close, but not close enough. She can feel the heat of him, the brush of his leg between hers, the easy strength with which he holds himself. He draws back to look at her, drinking her in, eyes half-lidded as they slowly trail over her, and her lips part. She flushes, from embarrassment, from the teased frustration, she’s not sure.</p><p>“Nate,” she says, her voice edging on a laugh and traitorously breathless. “I want…”</p><p>“Anything,” he murmurs. He shifts and smooths a line up her side, fingers slowly dragging, rucking up her nightshirt. He finds the curve of her waist. Her ribs. He lingers at the swell of her breast, thumb sweeping under her shirt, grazing over her nipple and he takes in the stutter of her breath, the shift of her hips. He blinks up at her under his eyelashes, slow and languid. “All you have to do is ask.”</p><p>There is heat coiling in her breath. She can feel her pulse fluttering in her neck and she reaches up to draw him to her, tugging at the collar of his shirt. She wants it <em> off</em>. “I want you,” she says, and he grins, almost silly with unrestrained affection.</p><p>“You have me.” His thumb circles again and squeezes, teasing. He dips his head, tugging at the neck of her shirt with his teeth.</p><p>“<em>Nate </em>,” she says again, and then he laughs and rises to kiss her, deeply and intoxicatingly, leaning in until he almost presses her into the mattress. His hips sink into hers, grinding slowly, inexorably. He licks into her mouth and swallows her moan, draws back to catch her lower lip, mouth moving, dragging over hers.</p><p>He doesn’t release her until she’s molten in his arms, her body burning and buzzing.</p><p>He shifts away, just enough so that he can slide his hand down, smoothing heavily over her stomach to the edge of her waist band. She arches, her hips tilting forward, chasing pressure and he presses her back down, his hand on her stomach, warm. He holds her there, his fingers splayed. </p><p>“You asked me how I’ve wanted you.” His thumb moves, stroking the soft skin. His eyelashes are like smoke against his cheeks as he blinks up to meet her gaze. “I can show you, if you’d like."</p><p>She takes a shaky breath, and then swallows. He follows the action, his mouth parting and she sees the flick of his tongue over his lower lip, the glimpse of teeth.</p><p>“Touch me,” she says.</p><p>And he does, watching her face as he slips his hand down, over soft hair, soft skin, pressing into the heat between her thighs.</p><p>She takes a breath, her lip caught between her teeth as his long fingers circle slowly, deliberately.</p><p>“Yes,” he whispers, watching her enrapt, and she burns- beneath his gaze, the heat of him, the weight of his touch.</p><p>"Tell me," she manages- and he kisses her again, consuming and overwhelming. She moans into his mouth and he groans in return, his hips grinding down into the mattress as his hand continues his steady, torturous rhythm. </p><p>"I want-” he murmurs against her lips when they pull apart for breath, his voice rough. "I want you to come apart for me, Dinah." His free hand tangles in her hair and he leans back to look at her, lingering on her throat, her mouth. There’s a flush across his cheeks, warm in the dim light. "I want to see you," he whispers. "I want to taste you."</p><p>“Yes<em>,</em>” she whispers back, clutching at his shoulders and his breath shudders, hot and wanting.</p><p>He dips to bite a burning trail of kisses down her neck to her chest, the edge of her shirt. Then he draws back, his hand pulling away - she protests, reaching after him - and he grins and rises to his knees, his fingers hooked beneath the waistband of her shorts. He catches her eye, waiting for her impatient laugh of a <em> yes </em> before he drags her shorts and underwear off together, tossing them somewhere behind them in the room. Her shirt follows and then his own - her hands fumbling, dragging the hem up as he laughs and wriggles out of the sleeves - and then he’s on her again, her lip between his teeth, his hands blazing trails down her sides.</p><p>He moves before she can reciprocate, her fingers dragging up the lean lines of his chest as he trails open mouthed kisses back to the edge of her collarbone. He lingers at her breast, warm hands and heat and tongue until she tightens her fingers in his hair and he hums against her skin, releasing her with a sinfully slow reluctance. And then he moves on, hands smoothing to her hips, lower, mouth soft as it follows. His fingers trace down to her inner thighs, pressing her legs wider. His next kiss is to the thin skin over her hip. And then he settles there between her legs, casting a heavy arm over her stomach, and she shivers beneath him, her heart in her throat.</p><p>“Nate,” she whispers, reaching for him, her other hand bunched in the sheets.</p><p>He tightens his grip over her and meets her gaze, a wordless question there. </p><p>Her breath catches, threaded with her heartbeat.</p><p>“Please,” she says again.</p><p>He leans in, close enough that she feels the warmth of his breath, the brush of his nose. And then he pulls her in and she is lost to the dedication of his tongue, the press of his fingers as he slides one and then another inside of her, working her open, arm heavy over her hips.</p><p>She curves, coiling around him. Her thighs shake, her head twisting back against the sheets as he builds her higher and higher, unrelenting. She reaches for him, scrabbling for purchase and he takes her hand and threads their fingers, interlocking them against the mattress. She's moored and unmoored, as that crest of heat and shivering pleasure rises, swells-</p><p>He takes her apart and she holds his name in her mouth, trembling and shaking beneath him.</p><p>He groans against her as she comes down, his hips grinding into the mattress. He carries her through the aftershocks before he pulls his fingers free, licking a few last, lazily broad strokes before she tugs him away. And he follows, willingly, helplessly, climbing back up into her arms. He’s hazy with lust, his kisses slow and consuming. She sighs into the warm demand of his mouth.</p><p>She feels the hard line of him against the crease of her thigh, hot through the thin fabric of his pajamas. He’s still half-dressed, despite her best efforts- and she drags him closer, hooking a weighted leg around his waist. She rolls against him and his free hand falls to her hip, sliding to her ass and squeezing. He moans, resting his forehead against hers, and then he laughs, breathless and heartachingly tender. His heart is pounding in his chest where they are pressed together.</p><p>He folds their joint hands closer, brushing her cheek, and draws her into more long kisses.</p><p>They move together until there's heat in her breath again, sparking and coiling through her. He's beautiful, like this. He presses his forehead to hers, lips parted, his breath in her lungs. She wants- she wants more, she wants all of him, she wants him to possess her in turn.</p><p>“Nate" she breathes, "do you have-”</p><p>“Yes,” he says, with half a breath, "yes, I do-" </p><p>After a final hungry kiss he releases her and cranes back, reaching for the bedside table. She takes the opportunity to run her fingers across his ribs, tracing down the slope of his abdomen and she feels his muscles flex and shake lightly as he laughs. And then he secures what he's looking for and leans back over her again, his gaze bright. He bends down to kiss her and she arches into it, burning.</p><p>He steals a final kiss before he straightens, pushing himself to his knees to address the condom and lube in his lap. She follows, slowly, shifting herself back until she can sit up properly, and reaches to frame his smile.</p><p>He looks up, hands pausing in their movements, his gaze affectionate, curious. She looks at him, her thumbs stroking the sides of cheeks. There’s a slow, full tenderness in her mouth. She brims with it, overfull; she lets out a shaky breath and he reaches up to cover her hand with his own, and she feels-</p><p>She could take on the world for him, she thinks. He looks at her and she feels her disjointed pieces laid bare; as if she's tied together with cord and odd ends of string and he could unravel her, if he wanted. Or bind them together, so close and completely that she's no longer sure where she ends and he begins.</p><p>It should scare her how much she wants that but, it doesn't.</p><p>She could say something. She probably should say something, but her voice sticks in her throat like honey and so- she kisses him.</p><p>He sighs into her mouth, eyes closing, knotting his fingers in her hair. He drinks her in until they’re both panting and breathless and she feels the threads of her humming, as taut as her heartbeat.</p><p>She lets her hands drop to the warmth of his stomach, brushing her fingers over his navel, the trail of hair that leads below his low slung waistband. Her fingers find the dip of his hips. The soft skin of his stomach and the firm press of his abdominals beneath, the strength he buries beneath layers and layers and his open, gentle smiles.</p><p>She finds the knot of his pants and tugs, and he chuckles into her mouth.</p><p>"I want you," she whispers, simply. "Please, Nate."</p><p>He strokes his fingers over her hair, always touching her. "Are you sure?"</p><p>"<em>Yes</em>."</p><p>She moves her hand down and over the hardness of him, possessive, dragging, and the noise he makes as he rocks against her makes her almost dizzy. And then she tugs at his waistband again.</p><p>"These - off," she says, articulately and she feels his huff of smiling laughter as he obeys.</p><p>He sways back far enough to push down his pajamas and boxers and she helps him half-pull, half-kick them off his long legs before her hands slip between them and he groans as she wraps her fingers around him, stroking.</p><p>It's intoxicating, how he curves into her. The press of his mouth, his open, tender kisses, the pant of his breath. The weight of his grip as he catches her wrists.</p><p>"Dinah," he says, short-breathed and warm, wry. He pulls her hand up to place a kiss against the fluttering pulse of her wrist before he pushes her back into the sheets, pressing her hands into the mattress with a non-subtle request to <em> stay put</em>. </p><p>He retreats enough to put on the condom and then he's back between her legs, encouraging her hips up, thumbing her clit and smiling as she jerks, arches. He settles over her. He watches her face, gaze heavy, heated, as he slowly presses into her, pushing in, and they both moan as they come together, his grip flexing as he keeps himself slow, hot and full and aching inside her.</p><p>His cheeks are flushed, hair tousled and sticking to the sweat on his brow. He looks as undone as she is as he dips to press his forehead against hers, the muscles of his back flexing under her hands.</p><p>And he is <em> hers </em> as much as she is his.</p><p>"Nate," she whispers.</p><p>He lets out a ragged breath, nosing in for a consuming, open mouthed kiss and when he rolls his hips her words dissolve into a moan, swallowed by his mouth.</p><p>His lips move to her cheek, the corner of her mouth, tenderly, before dipping to press wet, messy kisses to the line of her jaw as he starts to move, setting a steady pace, and she dissolves into sensation.</p><p>His hand on her hips, squeezing. Her legs locking around his waist.</p><p>His voice in her ear-</p><p><em> “Dinah. Azizam." </em> His mouth finds the sensitive spot on her neck, dragging down. He breathes her in, pressing his lips to her skin and his exhale shakes. <em> "You are - so beautiful.” </em></p><p>She runs a hand up his neck, tightening her fingers in his hair; the other draws marks down his shoulder blades. He groans, the hand on her hip wrapping around to the small of her back, holding her close, possessively, on the edge of control and pressing her into the mattress.</p><p>Warm breath, a hint of teeth-</p><p>
  <em> “You are-” </em>
</p><p>He shifts, bracing himself above her as he changes angle and <em> oh- </em></p><p>She twists her head and he follows, drawing her back to him and swallowing her moan as he grinds down against her. There’s heat building in her breath; she's coiled, low and building, burning.</p><p>He reaches into the space between them, fingers slick and purposeful and his name catches in her throat. She feels too big for her body, her skin; he anchors her <em> here </em> as he shakes her apart.</p><p>“<em>Darling. Dinah." </em> He leans in to press their foreheads together, sweat and heat gathered between them and his hot breath on her lips. The words tumble out as he pulls her close. <em> "Asheghetam azizam-" </em></p><p>"Nate-" she breathes, trembling, tipping towards that edge and his grip tightens around her as he groans.</p><p><em> "I want to feel you," </em> he says against her mouth, his fingers circling, exacting. "<em>Come for me, darling-" </em></p><p>He takes her over the brink and she breathes his name in the thick of the breaking pleasure, tightening around him as she trembles. He follows, his words and his touch encompassing, hips thrusting a few final times before he's gone and she feels him trembling, pulsing inside her, breathing murmured words she can't recognise into her hair and crushing her to his chest.</p><p>She feels the race of his heartbeat pressed against her ear. The trembling swell and ease of his ribs with his sigh as he comes down, sinking against her as malleable as soft clay.</p><p>He loosens his arms enough to press warm, careless kisses to her forehead, trailing down to her cheeks, the corner of her mouth, before she captures his lips with hers again.</p><p>Eventually, he pulls away, pushing himself upright. And once they’re cleaned up and partially dressed, they subside together again at the top of the bed, slumping into the sinfully soft covers. Dinah stretches back against the pillows, testing the pull of her muscles. She’s slow and clumsy and pleasantly sore and happy; she's happy.</p><p>The sudden, low dip of the mattress is all the warning she gets before Nate drapes himself over her legs, cushioning his head on her stomach.</p><p>She laughs, raising her hands to push him away but instead sinking them into the mess of his hair and he tucks his arms around her waist, twisting to place a brief kiss on the curve of her hip.</p><p>“Hello, there,” she says, tugging at his hair teasingly, affectionately. </p><p>His full-hearted, contented sigh shivers through the both of them, and he curls his warm hands closer to her sides.</p><p>“Let's stay here just a little longer,” is all he says, his breath whispering against her skin.</p><p>Her hand strokes slowly through his hair, the other running to his shoulders, holding him close, and she's bright and full, brimming with affection.</p><p>Her voice is just as quiet. “Of course.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>How did this get <i>even longer</i>-</p><p>Yep there is now a part 3 folks - beautiful, wonderful emotional follow up that I find <i>so much easier</i> to write than the above (although I'm not going to lie, this was so much fun to put together)</p><p>I've only ever written smut twice before and not in years - successful I hope??</p><p>If you haven't read my lil '<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25756792">Natural Philosophy</a>', it's a nice addition to this, considering it was a scene I ended up having to cut haha! They were taking, ahem, a lil too long.</p><p>And finally: asheghetam azizam means I am in love with you, my dear, but Nate's not gonna quite spill those beans quite yet heheheh (oh the next part of this is just --)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Dinah," Nate murmurs eventually. She hums, half-awake; her mind is floating, drifting. There’s the weight of him against her legs. There’s his fingers at her hips, slipping beneath her retrieved sleep shorts, and the tickling softness of his hair against her stomach and she likes holding him like this, she decides, trailing her fingers lazily through his hair.</p><p>She feels his hands flex against her, his thumbs smoothing over the curve of her waist.</p><p>"I don't want this to just be one night."</p><p>He's not looking at her. His gaze is lowered, his ear pressed against her stomach, and she feels the butterfly flutter of his eyelashes as he blinks; the subtle, shifting grip of his hands.</p><p>"I want this to be something," he continues, quietly. "If you want it to be."</p><p>She stills her hands in his hair, in surprise more than anything, and then she tugs gently for him to look at her. He takes a breath before he does, his ribs stretching with his inhale, and when he looks up his expression is open and raw in a way that- has her off-guard, wrong footed, stirring and painful and <em> bright</em>.</p><p>And she doesn't know how he does that.</p><p>How he can pluck the words from his breast, give them form, give them voice- even as she feels his heart beat heavily and that bit too fast where they're pressed together; even as he is afraid. </p><p>But there’s a certainty in the burning, fluttering expanse of her chest and it’s the same certainty she’d known all those months ago, in the agency hospital ward, the warm memory of his hand in her own. She has her answer.</p><p>"Nate.” She smooths his hair from his brow, tucking it gently towards his ears. His eyelashes flutter, a softness in the line of his mouth and he's looking at her, and she's unsteady and she's alive, with him. How can she say that? </p><p>“I don't want this to be just one night either. I want you, Nate. I want to know you.” She is earnest and artless, but he doesn’t look away and she won’t, either. “The good, the bad. Who you've been. Who you want to be. I want-” and she laughs at herself, a little. “I want to know what you're scared of so I can fight it for you. I want you, here. I want..."</p><p>He's holding his breath, she realises, her hands running down his neck to his bare shoulders. His hold around her tightens, squeezing.</p><p>"Dinah," he whispers again.</p><p>The way he says it makes something in her chest <em> ache</em>.</p><p>There's old pain in the crease of his brow. A soft vulnerability in his warm, brown eyes.</p><p>She knows that he is her choice. She knows he's a choice that she will keep making.</p><p>"What are you afraid of, Nate?" she whispers, half-wondering.</p><p>His eyelashes flutter. He lowers his gaze, sinking into his thoughts and away from her and she presses his jaw with gentle fingers, drawing him to look at her again.</p><p>His lips part, breath easing slow and warm over her wrist.</p><p>He looks at her as if she’s holding a world in her hands.</p><p>"You… you don't have to tell me," she says, her breath thick in her throat. She swallows and musters a smile, brushing back the hair that's caught on his brow again. "I just want you to know that you can. And how much you mean to me."</p><p>He turns his head to place a kiss below her ribs, lips soft against her skin. "And how much is that?" he whispers, not quite looking at her.</p><p>And it’s her turn to be afraid - but not of this, not of him. She’s afraid of the depth of this feeling and how it swells inside her- how much she <em> wants him to know her. </em></p><p>The words fill her mouth. "With everything that I know."</p><p>He blinks, and then again, something bright glittering in his eyes. He shifts himself upward and bows his head until he can press a kiss over her beating heart.</p><p>She feels his heart thudding heavily in his chest against her stomach; the soft brush of his hair against her collarbone.</p><p>"Thank you," he says, his words soft, his head still bowed. "I feel the same for you." He places another kisses, and then another, layer upon gentle layer. "If not more."</p><p>And there’s that swell of feeling within her - of something giddy and light and loving and she’s filled with it, she’s filled until she can almost float.</p><p>She anchors in his weight as he braces himself over her and pulls her into his arms. She breathes and grounds herself in the reality of him beneath her hands, the warm, firm expanse of his shoulders as he kisses the curve of her shoulder, the line of her jaw, placing a final gentle kiss at the corner of her mouth.</p><p>They remain like that, curled around each other, his arms holding her close and her hands smoothing across his shoulder blades, dragging slowly from his neck to his back.</p><p>-</p><p>"Which language were you speaking?" she asks, eventually. Her heart is overfull but it’s secured away once more, tucked away within her ribs. Nate is tucked against her side, his head on her shoulder. He’s spanned his hand across her stomach, drawing idle shapes above her navel with a fingertip.</p><p>"Hmm?"</p><p>He tilts up to look at her, blinking slowly.</p><p>"When…" Her cheeks flush, despite herself, when she tries to find the words and he laughs, the sound shaking pleasantly through them both. He smooths his hand over the shapes he’d been drawing and turns to place a kiss against the curve of her shoulder.</p><p>"Ah,” he says, and she feels his smile. “<em>That</em>. It's an old favourite of mine: Farsi."</p><p>"<em>A favourite</em>," she repeats, a little helplessly, forever over-awed by his many, many talents and she feels his smile grow as he hums in confirmation. She tugs his hair teasingly and he sways into it, still smiling. "What did it mean?"</p><p>He looks up at her, brown eyes glittering, and then suddenly shifts up, pinning her beneath him as he noses at the line of her jaw, the soft skin under it, tickling her with soft kisses and the rasp of his stubble (she wriggles and squirms, helpless beneath him but laughing, all the same). </p><p>When he eventually relents he braces himself on his elbows and gazes down at her, smiling.</p><p>"I called you darling," he says, without preamble, and the directness of his gaze sends a coil of heat through her. "I marvelled over you; how I was lost in you, how beautiful you are." He shifts down to nudge the line of her nose with his, and murmurs against her mouth: "you are beautiful, azizam. My darling.”</p><p>She kisses him for that, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck to pull him down and suck his lower lip into her mouth and he yields, making a sound that she feels more than hears.</p><p>“I like it when you call me that,” she says, breathlessly, when she releases him (or he releases her, she's not sure).</p><p>“I will do it more often, then.” The corners of his eyes crinkle with his smile. “Azizam. Joonam. Nooré cheshm-am.”</p><p>“And what does that mean-?”</p><p>“The same,” he grins and then he kisses away her protests of no, they obviously do <em> not</em>.</p><p>Eventually, drowsily, he pulls away, rolling away from her with a groan to switch off his assorted lamps. She watches, enjoying the long lines of him in the soft light, the fit of his boxers as he bends to reach inside the final lamp (a standing one with a floral brocade) before he sends them into pleasant darkness. The mattress dips when he slides back in behind her.</p><p>“Sleep, azizam." He reaches for the discarded blanket and drags it back over them, and then slips his arm around her waist. She curves into the gentle pull of his arms, settling against his chest.  “Sleep,” he says again, mumbling now, his breath warm by her ear. “And dream of me.”</p><p>She snorts and his laugh shakes the both of them, and after a moment arranging his array of pillows, they finally sink down together.</p><p>His breathing slows behind her, his heartbeat a steady rhythm against her back.</p><p>"Will you stay?" she mumbles into the pillow. While I sleep, she means.</p><p>His grip tightens around her waist before the words have finished leaving her mouth. </p><p>"Always."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so I really appreciate <a href="https://www.chaiandconversation.com/">this website</a> for helping out with the farsi I'm throwing in here.</p><p>nooré cheshm-am - the light of my eyes<br/>Joonam - my soul / my dear<br/>azizam - actually also means my dear / darling works too??</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Epilogue: the morning after</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Posting this here officially because it's definitely part of their canon, and the final demo has given me life. No spoilers for book three, though, don't worry.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nate wakes up before her.<br/>
<br/>
He’s giddy, and nervous- that next day cocktail of emotions; of new beginnings. She’s curled up in his sheets, comfortable and warm and she smells of him and his shampoo, familiar and new.</p><p>This was not the plan. He had mapped out a slow courtship- an exchanging of intimacies, private and hers as much as he was hers; planned secret gifts to hide in her desk, on her bed; the slow entwining of their orbits.</p><p>He does not, and cannot, regret what has happened, and how this has changed. He feels - full, filled to bursting, and also raw and open in a way that he hasn’t felt in many, many years. He did not expect everything that happened the night before, and yet even as unsteadying as that is and scary in its own way he relishes and leans into that- that terror and connection, avidity of feeling-</p><p>And then it occurs to him:</p><p>The <em>kitchen</em>.</p><p>He full-body jolts at the memory.</p><p>He extricates himself, carefully, Dinah thankfully remaining asleep, and goes to check the ‘damage’. And <em>good god</em>. It’s faint but definitely evident and definitely there - the lingering smell of her scent and his and they’re both <em>spicier </em>than usual (oh by the gods-)</p><p>A panicked, flailed solution: breakfast in bed. He was planning to do so anyway. But what– what ingredients do they even have here- oh god they don’t even have eggs what the heck is he going to-</p><p>He pulls out the sealed tupperware of garlic bulbs and after a split-second allowance of guilt he tears the lids off (plural - the tupperware is sealed inside a larger tupperware and buried in a low cupboard for good measure). Just that might be enough to warn Morgan away from the kitchen but- but just in case he pulls free a clove and peels it and drops it back in the box and drops the box on the table, by his books (he’d even left out his mug, hot chocolate long gone cold- but then maybe the fact that it’s still there means that maybe, maybe Ava hasn’t ventured in to the kitchen yet today-)</p><p>He reels back and runs his hands through his messy hair, once, again, and takes a short breath and confirms that yes, maybe that will do it.</p><p>And then he books it to the local greengrocers for the rest.</p><p>It’s still closed, at 6am. Luckily, the farmer’s market is just setting up and he manages to sweet talk his way into purchasing some eggs and onions and other ingredients from the half-awake stall owners (he’s still in his slippers, he realises, belatedly-)</p><p>(He leaves the kitchen a merry disaster of unwashed whisks and chopping boards and uncovered contraband and it is so, so painfully obvious that he’s trying to cover up something and you know the rooms might be soundproofed but the kitchen isn’t and neither are all the hallways and the detective didn’t make it back to her room, last night-)</p><p>(He will not live this down for a Good Long While. Farah labels this the Sex Eggs incident. Morgan holds a grudge. She banishes garlic from the warehouse and is unabashed in making embarrassing comments that has Nate blushing to the tips of his ears and the detective laughing, helplessly.)</p>
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